A few days ago, I completed the last exams of my junior year. As a rising senior, I now face what I had done my best to postpone until this moment: preparation for the LSAT and, possibly, the GRE as well.
As with the SAT, many will tell you that the test is an accurate predictor of the quality of student you will be. The debate about this rages on - but my personal experience inclines me to disbelieve the notion that six hours of test-taking on one day on the weekend of senior year of high school (or college) will be able to predict performance over the course of four (or even three) years. Yet the LSAT further appears to have avoided a common critique faced by the SAT: its bias towards those with wealth. One Harvard professor referred to the exam as "a wealth test." Such criticisms of the LSAT are decidedly harder to find. Yet that does not make them any less legitimate.
Reminiscent of my face-down with the SAT, I have, next to me on my desk, a pile of books with varying strategies of how to "beat" the LSAT, highly recommended phrases from the staff of the Harvard Crimson to intersperse into my application, and revelations of the "secrets" of law school admissions. Just as in the lead-up to the college admissions process, many of these books tell me little I did not know already: make sure to study, proofread your applications (accompanied by the obligatory horror story of the applicant who used the wrong school name), and, of course, make sure to take a prep course! All of these nuggets of advice are even more emphasized to students applying to law school than those applying to college.
But when I looked online to sign up for one of these lauded prep courses, I found that their cost ranged from $1200 to over $9000 -- with in-class hours ranging from eighty-some to over three-hundred! This is very problematic on more than one level.
First, the vast majority of Americans (even the majority of American college students) cannot afford to blow $1,200 to $9,000 on a prep course. Many of us are already heavily saddled with debt, others simply do not have the cash on-hand, others, perhaps, are spending their money paying their own way through one of the dreaded unpaid internships.
Second, of course, is the problem of the time needed to dedicate to these courses. In addition to the massive amount of cash college seniors are expected to fork over to Kaplan or Princeton Review, we must also dedicate hundreds upon hundreds of hours in order to get our money's worth! While of course dedication and effort should be expected, the problem is that college students have to clock in hours at their job in order to pay for the class in the first place.
But even if a student has chosen not to take the expensive path of a prep course as his or her chosen path to law school, they still face the problem of the sheer amount of time required to prepare for the LSAT. One of these previously-mentioned books suggested that one to two hours of studying each and every day was insufficient -- instead, the book suggested, try to study for four or more hours. What not-obscenely-rich student amongst us has four or more hours to study for the LSAT? Even if college students don't have to pay for the overpriced Kaplan courses, they may still be working to pay for college expenses, or perhaps to pay off the government's new $80,000 tax on lesbianism.
Meanwhile, these lower-class and middle-class students have to compete with those who have the time, effort, and money to not only spend on expensive one-on-one tutoring (exponentially more expensive than the classroom instruction offered) -- but who also do not need to worry about a job to help them pay their bills (whether they be to Kaplan or a bigoted military). And while undoubtedly many of these same people might both be taking a prep course and working as an unpaid intern this summer, it may that unpaid internship that helps them get into law school. The same could not be said, for example, for a job at Starbucks.
If any law school admissions officer is reading this article, I urge you: grade your applications on a socioeconomic curve, and remember that wealth should not be a precondition of acceptance.
Follow Noah Baron on Twitter: www.twitter.com/noahbbaron
Whether or not one has the resources to learn these skills is an important issue, and this is arguably deeply unfair (I tend to think so), but the fact that wealth may be correlated with LSAT scores doesn’t actually mean that the LSAT tests wealth.
Also, the thing about money is true! When I took the LSAT I was taking 23 credit hours and working part time. I studied for about 3 months, when I could, and I got a 161. I have a friend in law school who took the year off, the YEAR to study for the LSAT while living all too comfortably on her parent's dime. They got in the mid 170's. We go to the same lawschool, tier one, and I'm scoring much better.
Anyways, to a HUGE extent law school isn't really about how smart you all (I find that after a certain level, whether someone is really clever or really, really clever doesn't matter). It matters how much time and energy you use study.
life ends up being fair because the people that did really well on the LSAT bc they had a lot of time and money and privilege to throw at it, don't do well in law school.
Isn't it possible that your friend is smarter than you, and you're a harder worker than she is?
And I suppose it IS possible (she's smarter i work harder), no real way of knowing. Thats not my informed opinion however. But I think ur point of view is amusing, and I take note of it.
The various comments about the low efficacy & high cost of commercial LSAT programs are absolutely true of the mass-market purveyors. The average score increase of the industry as a whole, and of every major player in it that has ever published independently-validated performance results, is an anemic 7 points on the LSAT's 120-180 scale.
(This is even worse than it appears, since ~90% of ppl start out such courses never having even seen a full LSAT exam before. The avg increase one can expect merely going from "I've never done this before" to "okay, now I've done one," is about 3 points – so the industry can claim an avg impact of a whopping 4 points.)
But they are not true w/r/t testwell's LSAT 180 Course, which reports an independently-verified avg score increase of 10 points (1998/9 ADI study), and claims (tho w/o external documentation) a 12-point avg increase since 2004.
However, these numbers include the increases of a large proportion of students who start their training with scores already in the 160s - 170s (top 15%), and whose results obviously bias the average figure down.
The LSAT 180 Course has need-based, sliding-scaled tuition ranging from a low of $ 179 to a high of $ 1,219, exclusive of materials, and is consequently affordable to anyone who can afford to apply to law school.
Details:
www.testwell.com
A typical gifted-ed kid from a middle-income family who is still in high school, who got in the top 2% on the SATs, would likely be able to get top-flight scores on any of the various grad school aptitude tests with little prep work - and they'd probably be close to a perfect score on the math section of either the GMAT or GRE. An average junior in college from a median income family will likely score somewhat below average, simply because those with less natural aptitude for education don't aspire to graduate school.
It's not testing "did you take a prep course" - it's testing "is this stuff easy for you?"
High scores are correlated with having smart and successful parents (being wealthier), getting good grades (because school is easy for you), and having a superior educational background (see previous indicators).
Is this fair? It does a reasonably good job of capturing one trait that makes graduate school easier. It doesn't provide a complete picture. But very few schools use test scores as the sole criterion for admission.
Now, this is for the general tests - there are subject tests, and those are entirely different. In general, though, the GRE and GMAT, at least, are just glorified SAT's.
First, I taught the Kaplan MCAt course. (Mu MCAT scores,were,semi legendary.Modesty prevents me from posting them.and,it's a little like bragging about dick size-also semi legendary- on the internet. How does the reader verify/And,who cares/
Anyway,here's the effect of Kaplan on MCAT's NOT MUCH.
I believe there has been a lot of work done on the LSAT showing even less effect
You are arguing,in efect ,against genetics.Persons whose parents are from higherSE backgrounds tend to hav arents with higher IQ's (which,of course,don't really exist.Or,if they do,shouldn't). It's a toughj sell for you/
Politics according to MLK is who gets how much of what. Education, political representation, healthcare.
Inner city kids aren't the only people injured by lack of representation. But who exactly are you talking about when you talk about bought off politicians? What happend?
Further, where is your evidence behind any of your claims? You assume that those who take those expensive test prep classes performed better on the LSAT. In my experience (as a law student) those who took those classes faired no better than those who did not. I count myself among the few who did not take a class yet scored in the 170s. Oh and I pulled that off while working full time and supporting myself.
When is government really going to step it up? Short people need affirmative action to play in the NBA. Ugly people need affirmative action to date models. Count me in among supporters of affirmative action for clumsy people who want to dance in the New York City Ballet!
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It is amazing the financial penalties (and/or prison terms) the government or private litigants can charge for failure to have properly prepared said paperwork.
We're in the worst legal market ever, and it's only getting worse as more and more JDs get pumped out every year into an already-saturated legal market and more and more legal jobs are being outsourced to India with the ABA's blessing.
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While I agree that there are many overpriced law schools, a degree from which will not be of help getting any of the more high-paying law jobs, there are still plenty of law schools that either (1) don't charge an arm and a leg, or (2) provide scholarships to candidates with good grades and test scores. The economic climate doesn't necessarily mean one should abandon law as a career path. It can be a fulfilling experience. Those considering law school simply need to be realistic about the prospects following school and consider whether it is something they are really interested in.
Spend 12+ years in a broken down school system, in a crime-ridden neighborhood, with disinterested, unqualified teachers and textbooks from The Stone Age, and then let's talk LSAT advantages.
Funny how, whenever there's an article pointing out that rich people have advantages over poor people, rich people run to say, "Sure, I was born and raised well-off, but I would have done just as well if I had been born and raised poor." Suuure, buddy, sure.
PS The answer to a typical LSAT "logic" question, something any kid without a prep course or upper middle class upbringing could figure out: Schooner is to Regatta as Bourgeois is to Cotillion.
You ignore the possibility that wealth plays a role, but is not the predominate factor. You shift the burden of (dis)proof without submitting any evidence of your own beyond the hypothetical. And you paint all dissenters poorly in an attempt to discredit their arguments.
No one denies that wealth buys many advantages. The question is whether LSAT scorse are so dependent on wealth that it is a 'wealth test.' It isn't, because it doesn't require much specialized knowledge, only logical reasoning. (Your 'typical logic' question is absurd.)
That does not mean that there is no advantage coming from wealth. But it is far from the predominate factor.
My parents came here about twenty years ago, two years later they sent for me (they couldn't afford to before then). I lived with my mother in one room we rented in Elmhurst, Queens. I started junior high school before my mother could afford a separate room for me, and high school before we had our own apartment.
So when I say that wealth provides advantages for the LSAT, I am speaking hypothetically. But when I say that neither wealth nor free time (beyond a few hours a week) is a prerequisite for a high score on the LSAT, then I am speaking from experience.